Speaker Nabih Berri has announced respect for the viewpoint of all parties that have proposed electoral draft-laws but he remains adamant on the adoption of Lebanon as a single electoral district, his sources and An Nahar daily reported.

Berri met on Thursday with a ministerial delegation from the Progressive Socialist Party that said the speaker expressed “openness” to hear the suggestion of all sides on a law for the 2013 parliamentary elections.

Prime Minister Najib Miqati tasked Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi to prepare a feasibility study on the possibility of operating the Qlaiaat airport in the North, An Nahar daily reported Thursday.

The suggestion to operate the Rene Moawad airport was made during a cabinet session held at Baabda Palace by Finance Minister Mohammed Safadi to allow Middle East Airlines to use it, it said.

The cabinet agreed on Monday to hand over the so-called telecom data to security agencies but only within a limited geographic location and after the approval of a three-member expert judicial committee.

The deal was reached after a heated debate between the March 8 coalition ministers of the Change and Reform bloc, Hizbullah and Amal, and the government’s centrists - President Michel Suleiman, Premier Najib Miqati and ministers loyal to Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat.

Middle East Airlines (MEA) has formally joined the global airline alliance SkyTeam, becoming its 17th member and second anchor in the fast growing Middle East region.

MEA is the second airline in the MENA region to join SkyTeam in addition to Saudi Arabian Airlines that has joined at the end of May-2012, thus expanding SkyTeam in the region.

President Michel Suleiman held talks with Saudi King Abdullah in Jeddah on Friday, more than a week after the monarch announced his support for the National Dialogue that the Lebanese head of state had called for.

The talks were attended by the Lebanese official delegation accompanying Suleiman, including Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi.

A request by Free Patriotic Movement cabinet ministers to task the army with controlling the security in the North and put the Internal Security Forces under its command was rejected by ministers loyal to Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat, media reports said Thursday.

Several Beirut dailies quoted sources as saying that the FPM ministers called during the session held at Baabda palace for the implementation of article four of the defense law similar to the measures taken in the eastern Bekaa valley to strike with an iron fist any attempt to tamper with the security of the northern province of Akkar.

Members of the oil authority expressed their reservations on the appointment of Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour as the head of the regulatory committee, As Safir newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Sources told the daily that the “silent” disputes erupted among the members after divisions emerged over who should be appointed as the head of the committee.

President Michel Suleiman traveled to Australia on Saturday on the first visit of its kind for a Lebanese president, reported As Safire newspaper on Saturday.

Sources told the newspaper that memorandums of understandings will be signed with the Australian government and Suleiman will also meet with prominent businessmen of Lebanese origin.

Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun stated on Tuesday that a final agreement with companies on leasing power-generating vessels has not been reached yet.

He said after the Change and Reform bloc’s weekly meeting: “Prime Minister Najib Miqati is responsible for any delay in the electricity file.”

March 14 opposition MP Marwan Hamadeh said on Tuesday that the latest debate on a draft electoral law emerged to the surface to “cover up the continues scandals hammering the cabinet.”

Hamadeh slammed in comments published in An Nahar the efforts exerted by Lebanese officials to drop the 1960 law, which was agreed upon by all the political forces in the previous elections.